


Impasse

by Stonestrewn



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 18:37:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6251056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stonestrewn/pseuds/Stonestrewn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Josephine closes her eyes it’s as though she was back there. The walls aren’t the stern Skyhold granite but the white and gold of the Antivan ambassadorial villa. The world isn’t ending. She doesn’t know the stench of burning flesh. Leliana laughs often.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Impasse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anaeolist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anaeolist/gifts).



> In the section about Leliana in _World of Thedas_ vol 2, there's this passage on her honoring Tug, her dwarven friend and companion from the _Leliana's Song_ DLC: _On the anniversary of Tug’s death each year, Leliana opens a bottle of distilled plum brandy, imported from Antiva, and drinks it in memory of her friend. She pours a glass onto the stone for Tug, saying, “Antrast tunsha, salroka.”_ I'm putting that here in the notes just in case since it's a fact from supplementary material, and also the starting-point for this fic. 
> 
> And, dear recipient, your prompts were absolutely wonderful, I was so excited when I saw the assignment in my inbox! I'm having a busy spring and didn't have time to fill more than one, and it was a very, very tough pick. Hopefully, I managed to put together something you'll enjoy. Happy wintersend 2016!
> 
> Many thanks to my three heroic beta readers who will be unnamed for now.

She finds Leliana down in Skyhold’s prison, in the partly collapsed, uninhabited part, perched on the outer edge of what remains of the floor, just this side of precariously. 

Josephine has only been down here once, briefly. During the very first days, frantic with the effort of getting everything and everyone in order, sliced through by the images of burning houses, horses, humans, still knife-edge sharp in her mind. Leliana had brought her exploring then, an offer of distraction during the few moments when there was no immediate task for Josephine to put her hands on, or when she needed to rest in order to give those in her employ the chance to do the same. Leliana helped climb over heaps of rubble, held her hand when they walked past gaps in the walls or across ledges suspended over steep nothingness, the wind tugging on Josephine’s skirt. They had lunch down here in the prisons once in those days. Close to the wall on Josephine’s insistence, a safe distance away from the crumbling precipices. 

Leliana is alone today. Alone, and silent. 

Josephine calls out to her. The hood that shields her face from sight doesn’t so much as shift, and Josephine sighs with both annoyance and anxiety. Maker, why must Leliana take a seat at the very furthest end of this once hall, now treacherous obstacle course? 

Ever so carefully, Josephine makes her way over. Putting one silk slipper before the other, keeping a hand on the wall for balance. The floor is frighteningly fragmented. At one point a pile of loose rubble blocks the path - when she attempts to walk over it the stone shifts underfoot, and she is forced to let go of the wall, the illusion of stability, and tip-toe far too close to the edge for comfort. Once she reaches Leliana’s side her pulse is racing, her cheeks are flushed and her annoyance is settling into anger. 

“I’ve been looking all over for you!” Josephine says, but her scolding falters. 

Leliana isn’t silent at all. She’s singing under her breath, a disjointed little melody.There is an empty bottle of plum brandy beside her on the stone, the smell of the liquor faint in the cold, windy air, but distinct. An empty glass, too, and a large, wet stain on the stone. Josephine kneels, carefully, and touches her arm. 

“Leliana,” she says, gentle this time. Leliana turns her head to look at her, smiles a watered-down version of her usual clever smirk. 

Josephine bites her lip. It’s the anniversary. She should have known, somehow, figured it out and been prepared to support. Leliana has shared enough of her past life for Josephine to understand what this day means to her, how much the wound of Tug’s death and all the other losses that surround him still smart. Josephine should have offered to accompany her in this ritual of remembrance. Leliana would have turned it down, but someone should have made the offer. 

“People are asking for you,” Josephine says. It doesn’t feel right to push Leliana back into the minutiae of work, to force the guise of spymaster back on her face. She is so unguarded at the moment. Her hands lie idle in her lap, and there is none of the grim determination she usually exudes. Instead the air around her is one of melancholy, a sorrowful nostalgia. “Your scouts in the Approach have returned, their messages are on your desk,” Josephine continues anyway, because they both have a duty to this organization, this intricate machine that they constructed together which now has a consuming lifeforce all of its own. 

Leliana shuts her eyes, breathes in deep like someone bracing for pain, and Josephine makes a decision. No one considers duty as seriously as she does, but one thing she has learned is that, if one knows how to prioritize right, one can have multiple duties and remain true to them all. Right now, she prioritizes the duty of friendship. 

The brandy bottle is empty but the stain is almost a puddle, and Josephine suspects Leliana has poured more than one glass out for Tug. Because of this, and because these days she would never take the risks that the inattentiveness of intoxication would bring, she can’t be very drunk at all. 

Still, Josephine puts on her most disapproving face, and says: “You, however, are in no condition to see to your work right now.”

Leliana looks at her, consternation on her brow. “Because you’re _drunk_ ,” Josephine insists, deepening her frown, the way she would stare down Yvette begging to stay out past curfew. 

Because Leliana, if offered a break outright, would decline. She would shake the drinking haze out of her head and pull her hood up to shadow her red-rimmed eyes and return to the rookery with hands balled into fists. She would perform her tasks without flaw but the tension in her spine would stay and stiffen and the knot that she has tied herself into would harden just a little bit further. The thought is somehow unbearable.

So Josephine extends the offer of an excuse, an explanation for tomorrow. She does hope Leliana will bite, for if not she is prepared to argue, and their rare true arguments are always sad affairs that no one wins. 

A few seconds drip by. Then Leliana tips sideways, into Josephine, nearly knocking her over. “I _am_ drunk.” 

“So let’s get you out of here,” Josephine says, relieved. It’s a game of _I know that you know that I know that we both know_ but sometimes playing games is the only way to arrive somewhere honest. 

She helps Leliana to her feet and they walk along the ledge together. It’s not half as frightening a trip with Leliana’s arm draped across her shoulder, her plum-sweet alcoholic breath upon her cheek. They hurry through the prison proper, Leliana’s would-be drunken stagger as silent and sure-footed as ever. 

The courtyard isn’t as bustling this time of day - dinner time tends to either draw people inside in the case of guests and Inquisition employees, or line them up before the outside cooking pots for their daily bread and soup in the case of refugees. Rather than climbing the great stairs and crossing the throne room, Josephine opts for the kitchen entrance instead, keeping to the edges of the lower courtyard. She strides past the cook and her helpers as though nothing is out of the ordinary, nodding a brisk hello, and takes a lesser-used stairway and deserted, not yet fully repaired corridors up to the castle sleeping quarters. 

The sneaking around may not be strictly necessary. Surely no one will argue with the lady ambassador and spymaster if they claim to be busy, but Josephine feels as though she must protect this moment. Protect Leliana. 

If she’s honest with herself she does enjoy it, just a little bit, being the one with a firm arm around her friend’s waist, leading the way, for once. 

They stop by her office for a minute on the way to the upper floors. Danielle is there, as Josephine had hoped, standing a little forlorn and fidgety by the desk. Her face lights up when she spots Josephine, then turns wary as she notices Leliana. 

Still, her voice is filled with relief. “Lady ambassador, there are several missives on-” 

Josephine holds up a hand to cut off her assistant. “The spymaster is indisposed,” she says, “and will likely remain so for the rest of the evening. No one else needs to be informed of this, I have the matter well in hand. Do leave any requests on my desk. I shall see to them tomorrow. Should any of the spymaster’s agents come inquiring for her, divert them. We are only to be disturbed in the case of emergency.”

“Understood, lady ambassador,” Danielle says, and Josephine knows she will do exactly as she’s been told, and well. People believe Danielle, whatever she tells them. It’s the way she shifts her weight nervously from foot to foot, sometimes stumbling over words, the way she turns her large brown eyes up in the perfect picture of innocent confusion. She is consistently underestimated. It makes her invaluable. 

“Thank you,” Josephine says with sincere warmth. “And,” she adds, “have someone send up a dinner tray for us. Tea, no wine.” Leliana snorts in her ear. Josephine ignores it.

They make it to Josephine’s chambers without meeting anyone else. Leliana is walking upright now, having abandoned the charade, but her arm is still around Josephine’s shoulder, and Josephine’s still curls around Leliana’s waist. 

“She’s a very pretty girl,” Leliana says while Josephine unlocks her door. These days she keeps it locked, ever since… Ever since Haven.

“Danielle? Yes, I do rather think so.”

“I imagine that’s useful.”

Josephine sighs. “Isn’t it always?” 

She leads Leliana inside, locks up again behind them. Her room isn’t big, but it has all the comforts she could need. A large canopied bed, a desk, a tea table with two chairs, one small book case. Two chests of drawers, a couple of storage chests put away under the bed. A stately fireplace. A window with a breathtaking view. Two small doors lead to a couple of box-rooms; one she uses to store her gowns, the other is for the chamber pot and washing utensils. 

Leliana immediately flops down on the bed. Josephine tuts at her. “No chainmail on the bed.”

“Really?” Leliana raises an eyebrow in a perfect arch. “What a ridiculous rule.”

“Perhaps, but it is _my_ rule. And in _my_ room, we adhere by my rules.”

“Your rule has been challenged.”

“Leliana,” Josephine says, hands on her hips. “You take off that armor right now or I will do it myself.”

“Do you promise?” Leliana’s smile is small and mischievous, and Josephine returns it in kind before making good on her word. 

Leliana lets her. Josephine opens the silver clasp that holds her hood in place, tucks the coarsely woven fabric away from Leliana’s face, takes it and its fraying edges away. She pulls off the thick leather gloves, Leliana’s wrists slender underneath. She undoes the buckles of her arm guards and Leliana rubs absently at the places where the straps dug in. Leliana lifts one leg at a time so Josephine can remove her greaves and pull with all her might until the boots pop off Leliana’s feet. 

They’re both silent all the while, but comfortably so, there’s no trace of awkwardness. Josephine takes her time, savors the many textures of Leliana against her palms, of all that she carries and wears. When she removes the Inquisition insignia from her chest Leliana lets out a sigh and closes her eyes. 

It’s like ritual, like shedding skin. Josephine disconnects the leather pauldrons from the long chainmail vest and spends several minutes undoing dozens of hard, tiny steel clasps down Leliana’s front. Leliana squirms through the arm holes and rolls over to the side so Josephine can gather the chainmail and drape it over the back of a chair. It’s so much heavier than it looks. The metal is very cold, but the fabric lining the insides carries Leliana’s body heat with it. 

They repeat the procedure - unclasp, squirm and roll - with the waist-long padded vest Leliana wears beneath her mail one. With this all her armor is off and they could stop, but somehow it feels more natural to continue. Josephine’s fingers are slow and light as she brushes against the front lacing of Leliana’s trousers, a question in the tips, and Leliana arches into the touch, giving her permission. She raises her hips from the bed entirely when Josephine hooks two fingers under the waistband, lets her pull the garment over her buttocks and down her thighs. 

The shirt is the last thing to go. Leliana sits up, eyes still closed, helpfully lifts her arms over her head to aid with the removal. She wears nothing underneath. Her breasts are small enough she doesn’t need it, they would barely fill Josephine’s cupped hands. Her chest is slim and toned, muscles taut from drawing her bow, and her skin is pale enough that the blue lines of the veins underneath show through. She sits still and nearly naked in only smallclothes and socks, slouching slightly. It’s a beautiful sight but Josephine feels no arousal, only tenderness.

“Let’s not get you cold,” she says, breaking the silence at last. 

Nightgowns she keeps in a top drawer, meticulously folded with stalks of lavender tucked in between the linens and silks. Josephine picks one out for Leliana: floor length, tied with ribbons at the wrists and neck. 

Leliana pinches the wide skirt with amusement, once she’s put it on. It flows down her body like a waterfall, frills pooling around her. “Remind me to tell Cullen we’re to raid your wardrobe and put these to use down in the camp. This one alone could house a family of four.” 

“Oh, hush,” Josephine says. “The lace at the cuffs was sewn by my great grandmother.”

“An heirloom? My apologies,” Leliana says with faux denouement, and Josephine good-naturedly rolls her eyes. Leliana has an appreciation for clothing, but none for the loyalty that comes with inheritance, the obligation to material things.

There’s a knock at the door; the requested dinner tray sent up from the kitchen. Josephine only opens up a sliver, enough to pass the tray through but not enough for the maid to catch sight of Leliana. For dread Sister Nightingale, spymaster most feared to be seen swimming in ruffles would not be conducive to their efforts. 

Two mince pies, a salad based on cold, boiled carrots, apples drenched with lemon juice and generous amounts of cinnamon and ginger jam, as well as four small cherry pastries. The requested teapot under a portlet embroidered with the Inquisition symbol, sugar and fresh lemon slices on the side.

“Are you hungry?” Josephine asks, putting the tray on the tea table. 

“Not very. Leave it be.”

“The tea will get cold.”

“So let it.”

“It seems like a waste…”

Leliana lies back down on the bed instead of answering, and Josephine doesn’t push the issue. It’s a small thing, inconsequential. There are oceans of tea in this world, but moments like these are rare nowadays. Leliana, undressed and unguarded, without agents and birds swarming around her. Without the grim furrows on her forehead, without her steel-ring carapace. Not the legend, just the woman, tired and open to touch and talk of little things. 

Josephine wants to cup her hands around it like she would a butterfly, careful not to hurt the wings, keep it as long as she can before it inevitably flees.

She changes, too. Out of her rich golden silks and brocade, lifting the chain of office from around her neck. Leliana watches her, intent but without hunger, and Josephine lets herself move slow, shameless in a way that should make her seize up with embarrassment, but doesn’t. The room is quiet; Leliana’s gaze is gentle. She only looks, doesn’t judge or project, doesn’t demand. Content with Josephine the way she is - her drooping breasts, her dimpled thighs - and Josephine is content, too. Content to simply be, not represent. 

The nightgown she chooses for herself is much like Leliana’s, but a creamy eggshell shade rather than stark, snowy white. She crawls into bed as well, settling in among the herd of pillows flocking around the headboard. 

“Is this a slumber party now?” Leliana asks, squinting up at her. “Was this your plan all along?”

“Oh,” Josephine says. “Oh, yes _._ My dastardly slumber plan.”

“How devious.”

“Oh, _yes._ ”

Leliana chuckles. Josephine opens her arms and she crawls up the bed and comes to her, settles into the embrace as though it is habit. 

It used to be, back in Val Royeaux. Languid mornings cuddled up together in Josephine’s bedroom, drowsy and hungover from expensive champagne and breakneck schemes, feet aching from dancing and running. If she closes her eyes it’s as though she was back there. As though the light from the window isn’t afternoon gliding into evening, but a day mercilessly proceeding towards noon. The walls aren’t the stern Skyhold granite but the white and gold of the Antivan ambassadorial villa. The world isn’t ending. She doesn’t know the stench of burning flesh. Leliana laughs often. 

Leliana shifts against her and Josephine sweeps the nostalgia out of her mind. The present is enough. In the present they’re both living, breathing, fighting, each in her own way, and because they do, the promise of a future yet holds.

Josephine kisses Leliana, too. On her eyebrow, the tip of her nose, and it feels sadly novel. It’s been too long, become too rare. They used to touch constantly: lacing fingers and linking arms, hug their hellos, kiss long goodbyes. Somewhere they fell out of the habit, lost it like a gilded bookmark buried in towering stacks of paper, a dropped pearl rolled into a dark and dusty corner. She has missed it in an unconscious, unreflecting sort of way, they way she doesn’t notice the wind’s wail behind her own voice as she conducts a meeting, or the slow melting of a candle when she’s caught up in her work. With Leliana in her arms now, months, years, of longing accumulating in the back of her heart like the dust bunnies under her bed are swept into the light, whirling inside her. 

Leliana smiles. Her eyes are bright blue even in the dusk of evening, as though the last lingering light gathered in her irises. The lashes are stubby and pale, she rarely bothers with makeup these days, and there is something curiously fitting in her leaving her eyes so naked, so open, as she herself retracts into shadow. The look in them is soft now, but something cold always glitters at the bottom, like glimpsing the silver scales of sharp-finned fishes at the bottom of a pond.

They have always been thrilling, those unknowable parts of her. Beckoning like the dark woods outside the carriage on a long trip late at night, promising adventure and mystery, to be the hand that leads you off the trodden path and shows you all the wonders of getting lost. Endlessly attractive, Josephine was endlessly attracted. By the glamour, by the danger, by this woman who was her every adolescent fantasy personified, who set her pulse racing and her gut surging, but the real thrills came later, unexpected. 

Private jokes, straying fingers, ‘you look almost too lovely in red.’ Lingering behind in the calm after the party, after the dancing and the spilled drinks, watching the musicians put their instruments to rest while servants put their hands to further work. When the masks come off and the mascara underneath has smudged, when the powder is blotchy and lips bitten bare. When you put your faces so close you can count her every pore and her whispers are hot against your neck. When the wonder winds down, when you see her catch her breath, pluck at loose seams, when the mystery is revealed in the constellation of pimples by her temple and the chapped skin on her knuckles. 

That thrilled Josephine more than all the intrigue and the schemes. To be invited to Leliana after hours, to share her memories and worries and to share in return. To comfort and be comforted, to know she was one of very few who knew her honest, intimate, who had found her way in to the warm truth of this woman. Sometimes, boldly, she thought herself the only. 

She misses it, she wants it back. If she could re-learn Leliana, if they could find themselves back in step again, moving in the same rhythm like they did when love was easy and the world was whole... Here, in this bed, she has hope. Josephine is closer than she’s been allowed in a long time, so long she aches to count the days, and she nudges closer, strokes Leliana’s forehead and gently, ever so gently, she says: 

“Would you like to talk about him?” 

“Who?” 

“Tug.” Leliana knows full well who she means. “Your old friend.”

“No.” 

“It might help a little, sharing the good memories.”

Leliana sighs. She shifts away, subtly but unmistakably, a new inch of emptiness between them. “I should never have told you about any of that.”

“What does that mean? Whyever not?”

“Because,” Leliana says in the strained, overly patient voice one might use with a petulant child arguing over bedtimes, “it has nothing to do with you, really.”

It stings, like a poisoned needle through the heart. 

“Beg your pardon?”

Leliana only sighs again. She pulls herself out of Josephine’s arms and sits up, her back turned.

“When I find a colleague shirking her duties in favor of drinking, beset by grief like I have rarely seen her, it has everything to do with me,” Josephine insists. “When it is my dearest friend and lover, then all the more so.” She swallows, and her throat is tight. “Leliana, please. We used to talk.” 

“All right, then. Talk. No reason conversational responsibility should rest solely on me.”

“...Don’t be like that.”

“What’s the matter now? I agreed with you, didn’t I?”

“Oh, you’re _impossible_ when you get this way.”

“So, I don’t want to talk. You don’t want to talk. And this is a problem, somehow.”

Josephine scoffs, pursing her lips around an unruly anger bubbling up from her belly and into her head, fizzing like a bottle of sparkling wine carelessly handled. 

“Fine.” Leliana stands. “If you’ve decided to be cross with me, I might as well leave. I’m always needed somewhere. There are always those,” and she pauses, a knife-point silence, “shirked duties.”

How typical. That Leliana should fling her own words back in her face, words not unkindly meant, words brought out of concern and caring and Josephine is more than cross, she is furious. None of this is at all fair.

By the opposite wall Leliana picks up her pants from where they hang over the chair. Josephine hops out of bed, darts over, tears the garment out of her hands and throws it back. It slides onto the floor, lies by her feet in a crumpled heap. 

“Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare leave like this, pinning all blame on me. I have not ‘decided’ to be anything, but you-!” She clicks her tongue. “I am not the one being unreasonable here, I am _not._ ”

Leliana rolls her eyes. “Josie, don’t be melodramatic.”

She moves towards the door - clothing be damned, it would seem - but Josephine steps in her path, blocks the way. It would take but one single, skillfully executed move for Leliana to physically displace her, but Josephine knows she would never. Many things have passed between them, but never violence.

She is, as always, right. Leliana stops. She stands there, an arm’s length away, irritated but immobilized.

“Sometimes you’re so very Antivan.”

“You cannot deny me the right to be upset. I find you in tears-”

“I wasn’t in-”

“In _tears_ , Leliana!” Josephine repeats, raising her voice. “All I wish to do is give you a measure of comfort, to ensure you do not have to suffer through this day alone. I ask for nothing more but to share your sorrow, as you yourself once invited me to. But you! You all but reject me with little warning and no explanation, you _accuse_ me of prying-!”

“I did no such-”

“And you will not listen!” Her voice is rising in pitch. Josephine takes a deep breath to reign in her vocal chords. “You will not listen to me. You speak for me, decide for me, dismiss me out of hand in what are certainly my own affairs, first and foremost. Assign me secret guards without my knowledge, send your people into the House of Repose- Oh! I had the matter well in hand, Leliana! It could have been resolved without bloodshed, I know I could have made it so, but you persuaded the Inquisitor to move behind my back, you acted against the wishes I had explicitly stated…” She clenches her fists to contain the bitter tremors in her arms. “You assume the right to direct my very life. Yet I ask you one single question, one you have already answered me once, and you take it as an affront. Is it so grievous an insult? That I should care for you, that I should worry? That I should want to take part in your life, that I should want to share it? I do not think this makes me deserving of such condescension as you have shown me tonight.” 

The blood throbs in her temples and her neck. Her eyes burn. Leliana is silent.

“You sit up there in your tower. You spend your days among birds and agents wearing false names, if they go by names at all. The Inquisition thrives from your efforts, but you withdraw from us a little more each passing hour as your hands become ever bloodier and you… These days, you’re so grim. So… We’ve hardly spent time together, just us two and no work, since arriving in Haven. I see you every day, and yet… I miss you terribly.”

The tears come unbidden and unwanted, spilling down her cheeks. It’s the most vexing thing, that she can face counts and kings, even empresses if need be, and never lose her composure even under the most blatant of threats and hostility, but pit her against the woman she loves, and here she is. 

Her makeup is running, she can feel it, the stinging in her eyes. Josephine ducks her head to wipe her tears as well she can with her fingers, careful not to stain the lace cuffs of her nightgown with watery kohl. She needs a handkerchief, or two, she needs to get a hold of herself, needs to not have all her words undermined by her body’s treachery. 

Josephine glances through her bangs at Leliana. She stands where Josephine stopped her, back as straight and head as haughtily cocked, but her face - 

The patronizing air has dispersed. Her eyes are wide and gleaming wetly, her lips are parted, there’s nothing masking the bewildered sadness, stark across her features. 

“Josie…” Her voice is low and coarse. She takes a step forward, lifts a hand to wipe Josephine’s tears with her sleeve. 

Josephine leaps backwards and away, frantic. “Oh! Don’t stain the lace, you absolute- Get a handkerchief!”

“Where do you keep them?!” 

“In the top drawer!”

Leliana hurries over to the nearest chest of drawers, grabs a fistful of handkerchiefs and brings them back to Josephine. She hands one over, a finely woven square of linen with the Montilyet family crest embroidered in the corner. 

Josephine wipes her eyes, blows her nose. She folds the handkerchief into a small square with the wet spots hidden in the middle, dry on the outside. 

“Thank you,” she says quietly. 

Leliana gracefully deflates. Her shoulders droop like an age-worth of exhaustion landed on them all at once. She walks back and away, hands squeezing the bundle of handkerchiefs, and sinks down on the foot of the bed. Slumped with the voluminous nightgown bunching around her she resembles nothing so much as a fancy bag of flour, and even that image is appealing, with her slim feet poking out under the hem, the brightness of her red hair against all the white and the folds in the fabric hinting at her body beneath. 

“I can tell you I am sorry?” she says after a minute has passed. “If that’s what you want.”

“Please, don’t do this,” Josephine says, and Leliana lifts a deferring hand, almost sheepishly. 

“No. No, I know.” Her hand sneaks up to pluck at the hairs behind her left ear. She has a bald spot there, Josephine knows, the size of a royal. “I know.”

It’s almost completely dark outside. The corners of Josephine’s bedroom are dense with shadows the low fire on the hearth can’t dispel. They flicker over Leliana’s face, nestle in the gaunt of her cheeks and hang from the tip of her nose. Josephine should light a candle, she should light several, but she doesn’t move. She waits. 

“It needed to be done,” Leliana says at last. “Given the risk. I’ve lost enough people; I won’t lose you. That is that.” 

“I had it in hand,” Josephine says, nearly pleads. “The people you sent, they were your people, too.”

Leliana glances at her, sharply. “They knew the stakes when they joined our cause and were willing to sacrifice in order to achieve it.” She runs her fingers through her hair, lets her hand fall back in her lap. “As I am willing. You think _I’m_ condescending? Stop looking at me as if I’m some broken, wounded… thing. Everything I do is by choice, don’t doubt that. I have a goal. Our goal.”

“You’re too nostalgic,” she goes on. “Josie, the past is pointless now. It was never… You don’t know half as much about me as you think. I myself don’t- I’ve found, much later, too many things that weren’t at all what I thought back then. People, that weren’t-” Leliana shakes her head. “I know what I need to do. I know who I have to be. I’ve never demanded your approval, I only… Can’t you at least try to understand?”

“I understand, I do,” Josephine says. She straightens, stands as tall as she will ever be. “But I disagree with all of it.”

Leliana looks up. She says, with sudden intensity: “Josie, never change. Be always like this.”

Josephine smiles. Despite everything, despite herself. “Furious with you?”

“Honest.” Leliana’s gaze doesn’t waver. “True.”

She looks up at Josephine and her eyes are harshly bright, desperately lit with with a love so deep it’s dizzying, like standing at the edge of a mine shaft, feeling the pull from below.

A love like a gift and burden. A love both tongue and teeth. Love that is a needle pierced through the heart, broken off with the point still lodged inside, making itself remembered with a pang for every beat. 

Josephine thinks: _Maker, let my bones not break beneath this. Let my feet walk every step of the way_. _Let there be a place for us at the end of it all, let there be a life for us to live. Let us be good for each other. Let us find a way._

She says: “Now who is the melodramatic one?”

Leliana smiles at this. As bleak as it is, it’s a good thing to see. Josephine cups her cheek and Leliana turns her head towards the touch, kisses her palm. 

“Don’t leave,” Josephine says. “Stay the night, please, we won’t talk, only rest.”

“And tomorrow?”

“We shall conduct ourselves with perfect professionalism at the war table. If you promise to behave, you may assist me in laying ruin to the Marquis of Samarand’s many businesses. I have evidence he has consorted with the Venatori, so this will strike a blow to their funding.”

“Mm. I do like laying men to ruin.”

Leliana lets Josephine lead her back to bed, lets her tuck them both in, rests her head on Josephine’s shoulder. They light no candles. They nestle close in the dark. She means to sleep, but Josephine stays awake as the night glides past, slow and sweetly viscous. Leliana is awake, too - her eyes are closed, but she’s only pretending, Josephine can tell. She can always tell, far too well. 

She tries to match her breath to Leliana’s, to find a perfect rhythm, but she never quite can. Leliana keeps just a little bit ahead. 


End file.
